Waitzstrasse synagogue

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The synagogue on Waitzstrasse

The Waitzstrasse Synagogue in Kiel has existed since 2019 (the building itself was built in 1891). It is the third synagogue of the Jewish community of Kiel, which perished during the time of National Socialism, and its legal successor, the liberal Jewish community with more than 250 members. In addition to this, there is also the synagogue of the Orthodox Jewish community in Kiel with currently 460 members.

history

Jews first settled in Kiel at the end of the 17th century. Public practice of religion was forbidden to them at that time, and services were only possible in privately furnished prayer rooms. The congregation set up a first prayer room after 1796 in the former coffee house at Kehdenstrasse 12. About 100 years later the community built a three-story synagogue building in Haßstrasse and inaugurated it at the end of December 1869. The brick building was equipped with a prayer room for 85 men and a women's gallery. The Torah shrine was located in a facade bay. A mikvah , the immersion bath for ritual cleansing, was also part of the synagogue.

At that time the Israelite community grew rapidly to a size of about 600 members, so that a new building was soon necessary. The community financed this from its own resources, donations and the proceeds from the sale of the property in Haßstrasse. On January 2, 1910, the synagogue on Goethestrasse was opened in the presence of the mayor Paul Fuß and the chief rabbi from Wandsbek .

Members of the SS and SA plundered and devastated the synagogue during the Reichspogromnacht . The building was then demolished. The last prayer room, which was used until the early 1940s, was located on the property of the product dealer Alter Weber, who immigrated from East Galicia in 1913, at fire corridor 2 in the Gängeviertel and thus where the Sparkassen-Arena (the former Ostseehalle) with its underground car park and forecourt is today. After that and also after the end of the war, there was hardly any Jewish life in Kiel until around 1990. There were only a few Jews living in the city and their number was steadily decreasing.

In 1961, as far as is known, there were only 27 Jews left in the city. As a result, the administration of Jewish affairs for Schleswig-Holstein was transferred to the Jewish community in Hamburg at the end of the 1960s . The religion has not been practiced publicly in Kiel since then. With the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the subsequent immigration of Eastern European Jews to Germany, Jewish life in Kiel strengthened again. In 1995 the “Jewish Education, Culture and Social Work” was founded in Kiel, and in 1997 the cantor Daniel Katz, newly appointed by Hamburg, invited the approximately 250 Jews in Kiel to the first Jewish service after the destruction of the last prayer room of the Jewish community. The approximately 550 Jews in the city at the time, as well as the regular church services, led to the establishment of an independent Jewish community in Kiel on April 18, 2004, which is part of the regional association of Jewish communities in Schleswig-Holstein . The former Jewish community of Kiel, which prayed in the synagogue on Goethestrasse until it was destroyed on November 9, 1938, also belonged to liberal Judaism. In October 2004 a second church was founded with the Orthodox one. Both Kiel congregations have been members of the Central Council of Jews in Germany since 2005 .

The liberal Jewish community was initially temporarily housed in rooms on Dreiecksplatz and on Eckernförde Strasse. In August, she rented a property in Jahnstrasse at Schrevenpark and used it as a community center and synagogue. She inaugurated this on August 31, 2008 with the solemn introduction of her own Torah. The lease for the building expired at the beginning of 2019. The growing congregation was not interested in an extension. She had been looking for an affordable, centrally located and spacious property with more uses since around 2009.

This was finally found in August 2018 in a historic house on Waitzstrasse in Kiel. The house with high arched and round windows was built in 1891 by the Teutonia fraternity and is a former fraternity house under monument protection. During the First World War it could no longer be maintained and had to be rented out by the association and later sold. A free church used the building from 1919 to 2019. The current owner is a private person. The municipality was able to sign a long-term lease with him with the option of buying it later. The leasing and renovation of the building was financed from own funds and allocations from the state of Schleswig-Holstein. In the 2019 budget, it had planned around 500,000 euros from the Impuls infrastructure modernization program for construction and renovation measures for the two Jewish communities in Kiel. In addition, the state government of Schleswig-Holstein and the city of Kiel each grant the municipality 50,000 euros in rent subsidies. In the medium term, the municipality is considering setting up a mikveh. So far, members of the Jewish community have had to travel to Bad Segeberg , where the only ritual bath in Schleswig-Holstein is currently located.

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The former synagogue is to be saved. Retrieved February 18, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Martina Drexler: Symbol for Jewish life in Kiel . on: kn-online.de , January 12, 2010, accessed April 10, 2011.
  3. ↑ Kiel synagogues. Round table of the former synagogue in Haßstrasse, accessed on February 18, 2020 .
  4. ^ Jews in Kiel | Interreligious Working Group Kiel. Retrieved February 18, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Remembrance Day November 9, 1938: November pogrom in Kiel | Kiel City Archives. Retrieved February 18, 2020 .
  6. ^ Heike Linde-Lembke: Lack of space at Schrevenpark. April 23, 2014, accessed February 18, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Heike Linde-Lembke: Two synagogues on the fjord. May 29, 2019, accessed February 18, 2020 .
  8. ↑ List of cultural monuments in Schleswig-Holstein (PDF; approx. 650 kB)
  9. ↑ The Teutenhaus - B! Teutonia Kiel. Retrieved February 18, 2020 .
  10. ↑ a b Heike Linde-Lembke: Two synagogues on the fjord. May 29, 2019, accessed February 18, 2020 .
  11. ^ A b Esther Geißlinger: Free Church makes way . In: The daily newspaper: taz . November 9, 2019, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 55 ePaper 43 North ( taz.de [accessed on February 18, 2020]).
  12. ↑ admin: New premises for the Jewish community in Kiel - Land supports financing with 50,000 euros from the IMPULS infrastructure program. Retrieved February 18, 2020 .

Coordinates: 54 ° 20 ′ 6.6 ″  N , 10 ° 8 ′ 6.1 ″  E